Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Mr. Turner – 6.5
In this consistently bizarre portrait of the artist, we get no insight into J.M.W.Turner or his art. Instead, we get a character study of Timothy Spall as a grunting, lecherous, antisocial individual who walks as if his legs are stilts protruding from his hips. The movie is a montage of short vignettes, each cut short […]
Oscar Dud 2015
A big-winner favorite I didn’t like and a self-referential host who wasn’t funny were two of the reasons Oscar disappointed last night. As reported previously, my wife and I walked out of Birdman because we were having such a bad time. The absurdist magical-realism style never connected, and the characters, starting with Michael Keaton and […]
Villa Touma – 6.8
Maybe because there are three sisters, the blurb described this film from Israel as Chekhovian. In fact, it was as much Dickens or O’Henry – or whoever it was who wrote Cinderella. The plot is simple: an unwanted niece comes to live with her three aunts, remnants of a Christian community in Ramallah who exist […]
Timbuktu – 8
If, as I do, you want a foreign film to immerse you and teach you about an alien culture, then Timbuktu will satisfy you and more. There is a plot of sorts, but the film is more a series of vignettes, showing what life is like for the unfortunate residents of this city in Mali […]
Force Majeure – 4
An oxymoronic Swedish comedy and two hours of passive aggression, Force Majeure was a highly touted major disappointment. I can’t think of a single scene that rang true (especially compared to Wet Bum, seen earlier the same day), most fatally the husband’s fleeing his children at the onslaught of an avalanche. So much of the […]